The Economist explains

Why Sweden has so few road deaths

LAST year 264 people died in road crashes in Sweden, a record low. Although the number of cars in circulation and the number of miles driven have both doubled since 1970, the number of road deaths has fallen by four-fifths during the same period. With only three of every 100,000 Swedes dying on the roads each year, compared with 5.5 per 100,000 across the European Union, 11.4 in America and 40 in the Dominican Republic, which has the world's deadliest traffic, Sweden’s roads have become the world’s safest. Other places such as New York City are now trying to copy its success. How has Sweden done it?

Since reaching a peak in road deaths in the 1970s, rich countries have become much better at reducing the number of traffic accidents. (Poor countries, by contrast, have seen an increasing death toll, as car sales have accelerated.) In 1997 the Swedish parliament wrote into law a "Vision Zero" plan, promising to eliminate road fatalities and injuries altogether. "We simply do not accept any deaths or injuries on our roads," says Hans Berg of the national transport agency. Swedes believe—and are now proving—that they can have mobility and safety at the same time.

Planning has played the biggest part in reducing accidents. Roads in Sweden are built with safety prioritised over speed or convenience. Low urban speed-limits, pedestrian zones and barriers that separate cars from bikes and oncoming traffic have helped. Building 1,500 kilometres (900 miles) of "2+1" roads—where each lane of traffic takes turns to use a middle lane for overtaking—is reckoned to have saved around 145 lives over the first decade of Vision Zero. And 12,600 safer crossings, including pedestrian bridges and zebra-stripes flanked by flashing lights and protected with speed-bumps, are estimated to have halved the number of pedestrian deaths over the past five years. Strict policing has also helped: now less than 0.25% of drivers tested are over the alcohol limit. Road deaths of children under seven have plummeted—in 2012 only one was killed, compared with 58 in 1970.

Will the Swedes ever hit their "zero" target? Road-safety campaigners are confident that it is possible. With deaths reduced by half since 2000, they are well on their way. The next step would be to reduce human error even further, for instance through cars that warn against drink-driving via built-in breathalysers. Faster implementation of new safety systems, such as warning alerts for speeding or unbuckled seatbelts, would also help. Eventually, cars may do away with drivers altogether. This may not be as far off as it sounds: Volvo, a car manufacturer, will run a pilot programme of driverless cars in Gothenburg in 2017, in partnership with the transport ministry. Without erratic drivers, cars may finally become the safest form of transport.

In Sweden, annual human car transport is running at 15,600 km/ capita (i.e. the average person travels 42.7 km per day by car over the 365 days in a year). In the US, the number is 25,000 km/ capita or 68.6 km per day for the average person.
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So, differences in car use are less than a factor of two - nowhere near enough to account for an order of magnitude difference in road deaths between Sweden and the US.
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Why do Swedish people only drive half the distance Americans do (despite being richer than Americans)?
- cyclist friendly roads & streets (far greater proportion of journey are by bike)
- a more urban population (less suburban sprawl means that distances and commutes are shorter)
- high quality 24-7 public transport in larger cities makes cars unnecessary (it's just cheaper and more productive to take the metro and work through your emails on your way to work)

Unfortunately the 'freedom' to be stupid often enough manifests in someone else who is just minding their own business being killed.

Like pedestrians and cyclists, who are not surrounded by all the safety systems (seatbelts, airbags, crash cages and crumple zones) that will protect a driver in a collision, leaving drivers free to act in a dangerous manner but with much reduced risk to themselves.

Sweden has 264 road deaths for 9.5 million people. Britain has 1730 for 62 million people. The deaths rates, at 28 per million people, are virtually identical in both countries and way below every other European country.

Britain though, has impossibly crowded narrow roads laid down hundreds of years ago, full of bends and hazards large urban conurbations with lots of people, including pedestrians, using the roads at the same time, and almost no new roads designed for safety or anything else.

Yet Britain has no more per capita road deaths than Sweden. Perhaps the Swedes have technical solutions in road planning, design and all sorts of legal restrictions on drivers to aid road safety. Perhaps the British are just more considerate and more aware, that, as their roads are much more hazardous, they have to take a lot more care when driving.

By the way the article should perhaps be entitled "Why Sweden and Britain have so few road deaths"

CONSPICIOUSLY Missing from this article is the quality of Swedish drivers, which is consistently high. They are highly trained, skillful, efficient, very cooperative with each other on the road, and their vehicles are generally not equiped with automatic weapons. Driver education there is some what on a par with advanced pilot training in America.

In Sweden, I’ve slept soundly in a car being driven very briskly a long distance by a two teenage girls. And I’m a control freak. It was no problem.

Although there are many highly intelligent and skillful drivers in America, there are also to many that are stoned out of their bleeding skulls, obviously hallucinating, on WAY to much coffee, heavily armed and brandishing, and/or what ever, etcetera, etcetera.

Once, granted it was in the seventies, I was a certified professional driver education instructor in Orange County, California. What superior qualifications did I have to exhibit in order to obtain that highly responsible job in which I was shaping destiny of my young student drivers, the fate of their future passengers, and the safety of anyone they might encounter on the road for the rest of their lives? Breathing, and the ability to move my lips.

Let’s see how the stats look end of next year for Colorado & Washington!

Strict policing in Sweden? Hardly. I live in Stockholm and sometimes go weeks if not months without seeing a cop. Swedes are safety-obsessed, and the country also has a culture that values the collective good. In addition to the central planning that values safety, social attitudes, I believe, also play a big role in this.

So with all these good things Sweden has got down to 3 deaths per hundred thousand. On the other hand the UK with its famously chaotic infrastructure manages to get to 2.75.

Even that could be at least halved by three actions: stop teenage males from driving, get big motor-bikes off the road (I ride one but acknowledge the risk) and introduce 20 mph (30 kph) zones wherever pedestrians mix with motor traffic. The first of these is being addressed by the insurance companies, the test procedure has made it almost as difficult to get a big-bike licence as one to fly an aeroplane (I have both) and the third is already being introduced. So no fancy investment in infrastructure but a better result.

I have a cousin in Gothenburg who I visit fairly often. My observations would include:

Nobody drinks and drives..you really can't afford to go out and drink.
Traffic density is really low...less likely to hit someone who isn't there.
Roads are American size wide....so even if someone is there to hit, you have to try hard to hit them.
Roads are German quality maintained...because it's the way things are done and fuel taxes are high enough to pay for it.
Every other car is a relatively safe Volvo.
Swedes just aren't very aggressive.
Everybody wears seat belts all the time...because that is just what you do.

According to this source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.VEH.ROAD.K1 Sweden has almost the lowest number of vehicles per km of road in the world (where figures are available) with only Butan and Niger having fewer. It's not rocket science to work out that you're going to have fewer accidents if there is less likelihood of meeting an idiot coming in the other direction, the probably of which is ten times greater in the UK and five times in the US. On the other hand, there isn't that much danger of meeting an elk in the road in Clapham.

Cycling seems to be a big part of the answer. Segregated cycle lanes encourage people to use bikes, and when segregation is not possible, the presence of numerous bikes has a pacifying effect on road traffic. The real challenge is to persuade everyone that roads were not built for cars - they were built for people to use on bikes and in motorized vehicles (not forgetting pedestrians in rural areas and horse-riders). That is to say, all road users have equal rights and deserve equal respect.

I can hardly believe anything else! In German, we call it "Schleichwerbung". i.e. an ad which is covert so you will not easily identify it as such.
The article is not about anything similar the question WHY.

I can tell a number of reasons as I have lived there for almost 2 years:
- zero alcohol limit for drivers,
- in cohesion with a collective stance of "noone ever drinks a drop of alc if (s)he is to drive"
- fines for speeding, driving drunk or ANY other transgression of traffic rules
- fines to be paid IN PERCENTAGE of your monthly income [whereas e.g. in Germany the rich [big, expensive and fast cars] tend to drive as they please because fines are "a nothing" for them and, additionally, they can afford good lawyers which will definitely help in quite a number of cases] -- this leading to:
- a much more stable and reliable legal system, not distinguishing between rich and poor when it comes to justice
- "Everyman's right" concerning nature: preserving the nature is a cultural value children inhale with mother's milk in combination with
- the culturally embedded habitus of "one does not behave in a way which might be to the detriment of anyone else"
- i.e. as well not to push anyone to drive faster as (s)he feels comfortable with, keeping your distance etc. - as opposed to Germany where you will find a way higher speed-pressure and decision-pressure in the traffic wherever you use your car - seconds of hesitation are punished by other drivers with gestures, mimiks, using the hooter or the flash light ..... For normal, not so in Sweden ...

=> So basically everyone is aware of sticking to the rules for a number of reasons.

If you are measuring a country's road safety by the number of people killed per head of population, then Sweden's roads are not the safest. As of 2012, the UK has 6.7 times the population and 6.6 times the total number of road fatalities. As the 2013 figures for the UK are not in yet, then it's not possible yet to compare with the Swedish figures, but the evidence for the 12 months ending in September 2013 shows a further, albeit modest decline. If that continues into the last quarter of 2013, then

Iceland also has a lower fatality rate per head of population than does Sweden.

The really shocking thing is how badly the US is performing. Whilst it's true that they do higher annual mileages, deaths per billion miles are over two and a half times higher than in the best European countries. Twenty years ago, the US (relatively speaking) was among the best. What's happened?

Nb. a target of 0 killed or injured on the road is clearly aspirational, rather than practical. People get killed falling over whilst walking, so the idea that you can ever get to zero is ridiculous. Nobody knows what the practical limit is, so it's always worth looking for improvements, but at a certain point you can save more lives by spending money in other areas.

We have great healthcare as well. I fractured my tibia real bad almost a year ago now. It required surgery and all that comes with it... And guess what I payed for it? Well, 10 usd per day for staying at the hospital, about 120 usd for doctors visits including physio 2-3 times/week which is still ongoing (it's a limit, for free after that), 90 usd for taxis to and from hospital visits (again, a limit. the rest is free) and about 200 usd for medicine (got some really exp shots for homeuse and oxycontin). So total around 4-500 usd. But since it happened during a trip, which is covered by my own privat home insurance (which everyone has, mine is about 50 usd for 6 months) I payed almost nothing of that. Oh, and as for things to bring home 2 make sure I could live as normal as possible when not walking for 12 weeks I got it for 12 usd ;). Showerseat, crutches, things to sit on, things to make kitchen table higher, higher toilet seat etc. We have more than enough money here in sweden =D.
And just to add, I forgot about the ambulances. I had 3 of them taking me back since I was 400 km away from home. Also free. I forget since it's just a normal thing here, but I've understood that in USA it's not. Which is totally weird.

AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERS cannot engineer human behavior in a free society.
People WANT and DEMAND the right to behave stupidly.
The leading cause of crashes at night time is Drunk Driving.
The leading cause of crashes at day time are Txting/Distracted Driving.
These are simple bad choices that drivers choose to make.
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Teenagers are Nature's Safety Engineer Quality Control Testers.
They will swim with Great White Sharks, rollover car at high speed, or wear a cape and try to fly off tall buildings like Superman.
Yes they find ingenious ways kill themselves stupidly.
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I imagine self driving cars are a program driving mode that drives at a speed similar to grandma:
Safe and Slow and definitely 10 KM/H below posted speed limits.
No running stoplights.
No tagging along with the train of cars on a protected turn.
It would be like horizontal elevator--and just as exciting-- however you can step on the gas, rush the car, and run lights at any time.
And if you enjoy driving and are just tweedling your thumbs, are late, and are a bit impatient, many times you will choose to drive.
And when you rush the drive you can make up for lost time and travel faster.
But of course: Speed Kills.
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Engineers cannot engineer-out the Stupid Human Problem.
Human Freedom will find a way to sabotage things and kill themselves dead.
Whether in Sweden, Scotland or South Africa, Human Stupidity is the "X" Fudge Factor that may never be eliminated.
Freedom also means the right to behave Stupidly...and sometimes die from stupidity.

Interesting info. However, I would be interested to know the accident rate rather than the road fatality rate.

Getting t-boned in a major intersection in today's world versus the 1970's world is vastly different. Cars are safer and able to handle violent collisions better, emergency response is better, and our medical care for extreme trauma is vastly improved.

You may be less likely to die from a car accident, but this is only one degree of "safety". The accident rate may be a better indicator of improvements made from planning, design and policy.

I live in a part of Florida with a 2 + 1 road without a barrier to separate traffic going in opposite directions, just the typical US double yellow line (which you aren't supposed to cross, ever). I've seen freight truck drivers driving on the wrong side.

Florida residents manage to drive in the wrong direction on expressways (5 fatalities in one crash two weeks ago), and die in surprising numbers on recently-rebuilt expressways, even when traveling in the correct lane. Interstate 95 from Port St. Lucie to Fort Lauderdale, for example.

Florida has very little public transit. TripAdvisor's forum regularly gets queries from foreign visitors about how to get from Orlando to Miami without a car. There's two (slow) trains a day and some expensive flights. You don't want to try most of the buses. A private railroad company is hoping to change the situation.

Florida is a bit larger than England, with a population of 19 million, less than half of England's 53 million but close to Australia's. The state's terrain, much of it wet or fire-prone encourages fairly dense development. Dependence on cars for transport in its big multi-million urban areas (they aren't cities in the Australian sense) is due to public policy.